vcoer
By lysdexic on January 18, 2020 1:11 pm
Experiments with two voices of saws and two voices of squares quantised to the wholetone scale. Note resolutions and transposition of each voice is modulated every eight bars, but the tempo is also modulated every eight bars giving a strange feeling for time. Pitch sequences are generated at random, but saved into sequences that alternate in length between 12, 7 and 5 - these are constrained to only walk up and down a few notes within the scale from the first random number - the objective being to generate emergent chords when the notes fall in and out of phase. Delay lines in series with state variable filters are both modulated on each voice in stereo changing the spectral character over the duration. I enjoyed how this reshuffled the whole spectral mass of all the voices into different forms, the spatial structure shifting fairly dramatically in my headphones at times. A bussed reverb is assisting here, but triggered independently as a kind of unquantised timbral "backbeat". At times it will fall into alignment with the other voices. I'm doing some interesting panning stuff which gives the voices a bit of a slow zoetrope feel at times. When it ramps up to audiorate it's creating some phasing amplitude modulation in stereo in some of the voices which blurs and shifts them out of focus or blends them with other voices in odd ways. Mostly it stays down in the LFO range giving the voices a weird phasic inertia that I like in headphones. I tend to make music(?) with my eyes shut only opening them to change the patch every so often.
Compositionally I'm pleased with the main section(s) where the system becomes unified and begins to "sing" - some of the voices feeling like postrock guitars chiming in a few times each measure. The squares are being slow amp + freq modded by sines which gives them that gated lead sound which feels like the element that brings together the main section.
Outside of this it's still a bit like sonic detritus, where the pieces are floating unassembled. I actually enjoy these parts in other people's generative tracks - but i'd like to work on more cohesion in the interstitial sections without micromanaging them into strict order and completely sucking the fun out of generative. It's a fine line I'd like to explore more.
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
